Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Barkis, Mr. Chillip, David Copperfield, Mr. Creakle category: classics, fiction, literature, historical, historical fiction Formats: ePUB Android , audible mp3, audiobook and kindle.
I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my being a little inexperienced and girlish, Edward—I am sure you said so—but you seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe.
How dare you? Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held it before her eyes. You astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need.
I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was before. I have many faults, but not that. Whatever I am, I am affectionate. I know I am affectionate. Ask Peggotty. You lose breath.
I am so sorry. It is not my fault that so unusual an occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into it by another. Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us both try to forget it. I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes. When her coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr.
The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, since, that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr.
Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. Again, the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no Peggotty now, as in the old time.
Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish.
Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr.
Again, if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache. Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my mother and at me, and whispering. Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day.
There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home.
Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together.
I can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do.
But they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard—perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me—and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself.
I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books, and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the window though he pretends to be reading a book , or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads.
I wonder where they do go, by the by? I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it fresh. I trip over a word.
Murdstone looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly:. He knows his lesson, or he does not know it. I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid.
I tumble down before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before, and stop to think. Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting for a long time.
Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are done. There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball.
The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother thinking nobody is observing her tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips.
At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice:. My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr.
I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening.
It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been without the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird.
As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the Disciples , and held that they contaminated one another.
The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupefied but for one circumstance. It was this.
My father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs, to which I had access for it adjoined my own and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,—they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,—and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it.
It is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles which were great troubles to me , by impersonating my favourite characters in them—as I did—and by putting Mr.
I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels—I forget what, now—that were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees—the perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price.
The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or alive. This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.
Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr.
Pickle, in the parlour of our little village alehouse. The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again.
One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane—a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the air. I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue, and sought Mr. This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning.
I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking.
We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake.
Book after book was added to the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses canes he made it that day, I remember , my mother burst out crying. That would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. David, you and I will go upstairs, boy.
As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely—I am certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice—and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me.
It was only a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through.
It sets my teeth on edge to think of it. He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out—I heard my mother crying out—and Peggotty.
Then he was gone; and the door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel!
I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I dare say.
It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window I had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out , when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the door after her.
Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, and went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed? Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to prison?
Whether I was at all in danger of being hanged? I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance.
Miss Murdstone reappeared before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of that permission.
I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss Murdstone excepted, during the whole time—except at evening prayers in the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer, before any one arose from the devotional posture.
I only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, said:. There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole.
I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the urgency of the case; her room being close by. I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was doing on mine, before she answered.
Not very. Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own.
Lately, as I used to be. Just as well and more, my pretty poppet. And for someone else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear? That you must never forget me. As ever I took of you. Thank you! Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Will you, if you please, Peggotty? The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection—I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had been her honest face—and parted.
From that night there grew up in my breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define. She did not replace my mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human being.
It was a sort of comical affection, too; and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should have done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me. In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come downstairs into the parlour, and have my breakfast. There, I found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul.
Try to be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart. They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and than look down, or look away.
I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door. The box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in. Looking for a Free Bedtime story books? Jim and Jen are going to the zoo and the drive never seems to end.
They just made a song for the road and the tune is growing on mom and dad. Dragons come in many shapes and sizes and speak different tongues. No matter what they all have one thing in common.. Mandy and grandpa went on a hike. But it was more than that. Together they explored the woods, learnt to be at peace with nature and talked their hearts out about things that mattered. Happy Exploring!! She was a gloomy-looking lady, dark like her brother, and much like him in character.
She assumed the care of the house, and mother had nothing more to do with it. Meanwhile, I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and the very sight of the Murdstones had such an effect upon me, that every word I had tried to learn would glide away, and go I know not where.
I was treated to so much systematic cruelty that after six months, I became sullen, dull, and dogged, and this feeling was not lessened by the fact that I was more and more shut out from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupified but for the small collection of books which had belonged to my own father, and to which I had access. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time—they, and the "Arabian Nights" and "Tales of the Genii,"—and were my only comfort.
One morning, when I went into the parlour with my books, I found Mr. Murdstone poising a cane in the air, which he had obtained, it seemed, for the purpose of flogging me for any mistake I might make. My apprehension was so great, that the words of my lessons slipped off by the entire page,—I made mistake after mistake, failure upon failure,—and presently Mr.
Murdstone rose, taking up the cane, and telling me to follow him. As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone said, "Clara! I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. Murdstone walked me up to my room, and when we got there suddenly twisted my head under his arm. Pray don't beat me! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed! It was only for a moment though, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth and bit it through.
It sets my teeth on edge to think of it. He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs and crying out—my mother and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the house!
When my passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel! My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh when I moved, but they were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay like lead upon my breast. For five days I was imprisoned, and of the length of those days I can convey no idea to any one.
They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. On the fifth night Peggotty came to my door and whispered my name through the keyhole. Near London," was Peggotty's answer. In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared and told me what I already knew, and said that I was to come down into the parlour, and have my breakfast. My mother was there, very pale, and with red eyes, into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul.
Try to be better, pray to be better! I forgive you, but I am so grieved, Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart! I felt it sorely.
I tried to eat, but tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea, and I could not swallow. Presently the carrier was at the door, my box was in the cart, and before I could realise it, my mother was holding me in a farewell embrace, and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse started off.
About half a mile away from home the carrier stopped, and Peggotty burst from a hedge and climbed into the cart. She squeezed me until I could scarcely speak, and crammed some bags of cakes into my pockets, and a purse into my hand, but not a word did she speak. Then with a final hug, she climbed down and ran away again, and we started on once more. Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think it was of no use crying any more. The carrier agreed with me, and proposed that my pocket handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry, to which I assented, and then turned my attention to the purse.
It had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening,—but more precious yet,—were two half-crowns in a bit of paper on which my mother had written, "For Davy. With my love. At Yarmouth we drove to the inn-yard, where I dismounted, and was given dinner, after which I mounted the coach for London, and at three o'clock we started off on a trip which was not unpleasant to me, with its many novel sights and experiences.
In London, at an inn in Whitechapel, I was met by a Mr. Mell, one of the teachers at Salem House, the school to which I was going. We journeyed on together, and by the next day were at Salem House, which was a square brick building with wings, enclosed with a high brick wall.
I was astonished at the perfect quiet there, until Mr. Mell told me that the boys were at their homes on account of it being holiday-time, and that even the proprietor was away. And he added that I was sent in vacation as a punishment for my misdoing. I can see the schoolroom now, into which he took me, with its long rows of desks and forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates.
Scraps of old copy-books and exercises littered the dirty floor, ink had been splashed everywhere, and the air of the place was indescribably dreary.
My companion left me there alone for a while, and as I roamed round, I came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, lying on a desk, bearing these words, "Take care of him. He bites. I was still peering about, when Mr. Mell came back, and asked what I did up there. That's a boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back. I am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do it.
What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. I always fancied that somebody was reading it, and I began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite. Above and beyond all, I dreaded the coming back of the boys and what they might think of me, and my days and nights were filled with gloomy forebodings. In a month Mr. Creakle, the proprietor of Salem House arrived. He was stout, with a bald head, a fiery face, small, deep-set eyes, thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin.
His face always looked angry, but what impressed me most about him was that he spoke always in a whisper. He inquired at once about my behaviour, and seemed disappointed to find that there was nothing against me so far.
He then told me that he knew my stepfather as a man of strong character, and that he should carry out his wishes concerning me. He pinched my ear with ferocious playfulness, and I was very much frightened by his manner and words; but before I was ordered away, I ventured to ask if the placard might not be removed.
Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or only meant to frighten me, I don't know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before which I precipitately retreated, and never once stopped until I reached my own bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, and lay quaking for a couple of hours. The next day the other masters and the scholars began to arrive.
Jolly Tommy Traddles was the first boy back, and it was a happy circumstance for me. He enjoyed my placard so much that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to the other boys in this way; "Look here! Here's a game! Some of them did dance about me like wild Indians and pretended I was a dog, patting me and saying, "Lie down, sir! I was not considered as formally received into the school until I had met J.
He was one of the older scholars, reputed to be brilliant and clever, and quite the lion of the school. He inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and said it was "a jolly shame," which opinion bound me to him ever afterwards. Then he asked me what money I had, and when I answered seven shillings, he suggested that I spend a couple of shillings or so in a bottle of currant wine, and a couple or so in almond cakes, and another in fruit, and another in biscuit, for a little celebration that night in our bedroom, in honour of my arrival, and of course I said I should be glad to do so.
I was a little uneasy about wasting my mother's half-crowns, but I did not dare to say so, and Steerforth procured the feast and laid it out on my bed, saying, "There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you've got. This ebook has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices.
Mansfield Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.
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